In a shocking and completely unforeseen turn of events (not), today in a faculty meeting this happened not once but twice: I point out that something is wrong with the motion currently being discussed and I propose a change. The chair shoots it down “because reasons.” Within minutes — nay, seconds! — one of the Important People rephrases and proposes the same thing, and the chair falls all over himself to implement said change.

Similarly, I start a discussion. Right after me, a colleague says he totally agrees with me and elaborates a little bit. From there on, everyone agrees with the colleague or disagrees with the colleague or elaborates on what the colleague has said (i.e., they all refer to him by name). Just as if I had never opened my mouth.

You know what, it’s totally my fault. It serves me right for sacrificing ~90 min of my grant-writing time today to attend this crap meeting.

If you are asking why I am not changing institutions, the reasons are:

1) My family is happy here and we have a solved two-body problem.
2) Honestly, I do not think it would be any better elsewhere.

But, sometimes, I seriously hate people.

Back to grant writing.